Roots In The City, Inc., founded by author and academic Marvin Dunn, Ph.D. in 1994, is a nonprofit, community-based organization located in the Overtown neighborhood in the shadow of downtown Miami.

Roots In The City is focused on community development, creating jobs and beautifying Miami's inner city.  The organization has established several community gardens and tree nurseries in Overtown.

Community volunteers and Overtown residents make up the heart of the organization. They maintain the gardens and nurseries year-round.  Roots In The City receives support from hundreds of volunteers through organizations such as Hands on Miami, Touching Miami with Love, and Miami Dade College. (Follow our media coverage)

The main botanical garden sits across from the Overtown Youth Center on Northwest 14 Street and Northwest Third Avenue. Drivers headed to Miami Beach on I-395 can catch a glimpse of the lush garden beautifying this small strip of Overtown.

The vegetable garden is located across the street from the historic Mt. Zion Baptist Church on the northeast corner of Northwest Ninth Street and Northwest Third Avenue. The two-acre lot features collard greens, citrus trees and papayas. The fertile garden yields fruits and vegetables throughout the year and supplies locals with a healthy supply of greens often missing from their diet. Freshly grown produce from the garden is offered free to the community through giveaway programs to schools, community agencies and homeless shelters.  Produce is also sold in markets and local stores.

Funding for Roots In The City comes primarily from the City of Miami’s Community Redevelopment Agency, which supports the organization’s Landscape and Horticultural Training Institute for inner-city residents.  The organization has received funding from Miami-Dade County Community Image Advisory Board (CIAB) for the beautification of I-95 through Overtown and from the Dade Community Foundation.  In July 2009 the organization received a grant from the State of Florida to conduct a survey of historic Rosewood Florida, an all-black town near Gainesville which was destroyed by a white mob in 1923.

   Roots  In  The  City,  Inc.

Nonprofit Beautification Project